State and private media showed special interest in a carrier pigeon carrying paper and microfilm that was found on Sunday.

According to the state owned news agency MENA, the pigeon was found by a security guard in Shubra al-Kheima, north of Cairo, who reported it to the police.

The pigeon as well as both the paper and the microfilm were sent, amid high security, to the Crime Laboratory. Written on the paper was “Islam Egypt 2012.”

State TV quoted a senior official at the Qalyubiya Security Directorate as saying that they are checking the contents of the microfilm. The directorate assigned two senior officers, General Mohamed al-Qusairy and Brigadier General Usama Ayesh, to conduct the investigations on the pigeon

Carrier pigeons were used in ancient times as a messengers, as well as during the First World War. One French pigeon received a medal for doing its job despite being injured.

Issandr El Amrani is a Cairo-based writer and consultant. His reporting and commentary on the Middle East and North Africa has appeared in The Economist, London Review of Books, Financial Times, The National, The Guardian, Time and other publications. He also publishes one of the longest-running blog in the region, www.arabist.net.